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Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

reuters.com

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Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#61

Post by contingo »

driggs wrote: post #9
uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

I came here to post the exact same sentiment and the ordered phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". Yes, it's bad that this was advertised as a specific recycling program and involved parties knowingly or unknowingly diverged from that stated plan. But from a global resource consumption perspective, it's far preferable to re-use good shoes (which also reduces the production of new shoes) than to recycle them for recovered…

From the article:

>The donated shoes that ended up in Indonesia have added to a flood of illegal second-hand clothing pouring into that developing country, according to a senior government official there, who said such cast-offs pose a public health risk, undercut its local textile industry and often pile more waste into its already bulging landfills.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#62

Post by danielfoster »

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

I find the extent to which Dow lied to be outrageous. It did not say the shoes would be recycled, but specifically said they would be used to make playground padding.

Why shouldn’t honesty be expected? After all, this is a country where people still get caned.

Reusing the shoes as was the case is of course better.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#63

Post by htrp »

Looks like they used an apple airtag, but couldn't specifically call it that for some reason....

>One shoe of each pair was implanted with a thin, round Bluetooth tracking device.

> a small location tracker was beeping from the back of a crumbling second-hand shoe store. A Reuters reporter followed the high-pitched ping to a mound of old sneakers and began digging through the pile.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#65

Post by deathanatos »

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

> A torrent of cheap, unregulated second-hand clothing flowing into Indonesia also adds to the country’s mounting garbage problem, said Dharmesh Shah, a policy advisor to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, a nonprofit working on waste pollution. He said much of that merchandise is in such poor condition that vendors can’t resell it.

> “They sort through it and a very small percentage is actually reusable,” Shah told Reuters. “It just gets burned in open dumps or goes into rivers or in landfills.”

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#66

Post by thatguy0900 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #27
driggs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to post the exact same sentiment and the ordered phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". Yes, it's bad that this was advertised as a specific recycling program and involved parties knowingly or unknowingly diverged from that stated plan. But from a global resource consumption perspective, it's far preferable to re-use good shoes (which also reduces the production of new shoes) than to recycle them for recovered…

> But from a global resource consumption perspective, it's far preferable to re-use good shoes But they were not good shoes. They had tracking devices put into them. Full stop. Imagine putting tracking devices into children's shoes and then having them "reused" like this. Yes, reuse is great. And if that's what they said they were going to do, awesome. But that's not what happened here, and exposes a very real proble…

You can put a tracking device in anything and give it to a goodwill right now. This feels like a very strange angle to take. Especially when these shoes traveled accross countries.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#67

Post by hattmall »

DamonHD wrote: post #3
uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

If not one sample pair of shoes was processed in the way advertised, then I think it is indeed outrageous. I'd agree that reuse might be better, but then the programme should be clear that that is one possible outcome.

Well they lost track of 3 pair, which could mean they were indeed shredded and recycled. 0

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#68

Post by notatoad »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #29

What’s the scandal here? Perfectly good shoes were sent to a country that seems to have a need and market for reasonably priced shoes. The people on the ground there aren’t going to care about some bourgeois project like recycling them into a walking path so more wealthy people’s feet are comfortable on leisure walks through a park. The people working on these projects have their own opinions on it and acted accordin…

the article does a poor job of selling the problem here, but the outrage is that companies encourage overconsumption in rich western countries by telling us things are recycled, and that it's okay to buy more stuff we don't need because it's recyclable. it's just greenwashing.

most of the shoes people put in donation bins aren't going to last long for their second owners, and people in indonesia don't have the same compunctions about throwing things in the trash as people in richer countries do. so all this is doing is shipping waste overseas so an indonesian can throw it in the garbage and it goes in an indonesian landfill instead of a singaporean landfill. they're laundering the waste so rich people can pretend they aren't throwing things in the trash.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#69

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

hermitcrab wrote: post #58

This is a great piece of investigative journalism. We need for of this holding big companies to account. BTW Trainers being re-used is good. But big companies lying to us to is not good.

I agree. This is really top notch journalism; something we don't see often anymore. I would give this piece an award honestly.

It seems the real scandal is that they've caught Dow giving lip service about its recycling program. I think I'm fine with where the shoes ended up though. I'd rather see them get used.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#70

Post by notatoad »

mqus wrote: post #51
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #29

What’s the scandal here? Perfectly good shoes were sent to a country that seems to have a need and market for reasonably priced shoes. The people on the ground there aren’t going to care about some bourgeois project like recycling them into a walking path so more wealthy people’s feet are comfortable on leisure walks through a park. The people working on these projects have their own opinions on it and acted accordin…

1. I did not read it but I assume that the shoes they tried this with were in good condition (at least visibly). They did write that only a small percentage of imported second-hand clothes get actually sold, the rest is burned or put on landfills, e.g. NOT reused. Of course, it would have been interesting to see what happens with broken shoes. Though I don't believe for a second they would have been recycled (or reus…

>Recycling shoes means that the materials are used to make new shoes.

that is almost never the case. that's exactly the lie that companies like DOW want to sell people, but other than a few specific materials like aluminium and glass, almost all recycling is actually downcycling. the broken promise here wasn't that the shoes would be recycled into more shoes, it was that they'd be recycled into playground equipment. most consumer goods are made with virgin materials, and the output of a recycling process is used for industrial goods or processes.

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